STANDINGS AND REPORT FOR OCTOBER 2014

STANDINGS AND REPORT FOR OCTOBER 2014

Maybe it was the unseasonably warm evening -­‐ and it wasn’t a dark and stormy night either, but the perennial favourites, The Ministry of Truth became uncharacteristically derailed at the season opener ending up tied for 8th place with five other teams. Thistle Rocks won the evening with a strong finish just eking out the dynamic duo of Cashew. In sum, it was an exciting evening with the lead changing hands several times. The team of 3 Old Guys were in the #1 spot for the first three rounds until stumbling in Round 4.

In Round 1, most of the teams identified Mozart’s imagination but nearly all the composer greats were mentioned. Many also knew about the corpus callosum including our Arts contingent, the Blonde Artifacts. Part of their brain trust I guess. The most popular wrong answer was cerebral cortex. Most teams did not know the material of pool cue tips but six teams (Thistle Rocks, Rabblerousers, the Otto Maass group, Hotel de Ville, Boom Down and 3 Old Guys revealed the habits of their youth by choosing leather as the right answer. Mea Culpa for my missing the now demonstrated fact that the Spring Bok females have antlers as noted by Positive Vibrations in a quiet “correction moment”-­‐ thanks. The Blonde Artifacts showed either great guesswork or detailed knowledge of Latin (likely) and were the only team that knew the origin of the term “busboy”. I did not mean to divert so many from this answer. Most missed the year of the first goalie goal (1979) including the Ministry! All but one group knew Thumper the rabbit and Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson were about evenly chosen for the 10th question. In all, the Round averaged 53%.

Round 2 averaged higher (63%) and Boom Down and Dewey Decibels scored a near-­‐perfect 9. Many knew the Bishop Ussher proclamation of the Creation as did a similar number who identified the Montreal Royals’ baseball cap (it is a photo of my own hat but is a replica). All teams knew Morgan Freeman as the driver in the Oscar-­‐winning film. Half the group knew “grawlix” as the term for “%$#$%” for “swearing” in comics. They were the Bulldogs, the Hotel group, Dewey Decibel, the Space Cadets, the Spuds, Edgar and the Poes (who bring our youngest contestant), Cashew, 3 Old Guys, For the Record, Hacks, Trivia Now, Insanity Later (new names), Otto Maass and Boom Down. The other teams were swearing for missing this-­‐ perhaps. Almost all said “Android” for the question on human robots although the Artifact group said “Replicant” and subsequent research shows that this is a term in the movie “Blade Runner”. They were given post-­‐game credit. This post-­‐facto business is a dubious (but correct) activity as it might have affected the team placement for the night but I think it appropriate for the overall totals during the year.

The scores in Round 3 dipped a bit with the Secret Society getting the top score of 8. Harrison Ford and Samuel L. Jackson got the most attention for box office success but only Boom Down, Trivia Trailblazers, Rabblerousers, The Dewey Decibels and Edgar and the Poes (“Toy Story”?) correctly chose Tom Hanks. The region of Pomerania was correctly selected by the Secret Society, Cashew, the Hotel group, the Ministry, Hacks, For the Record and the TriviaTrailblazers. There were many combinations of countries given with at least one of the countries ending in “nia” letters like Romania, Albania and Armenian; Switzerland even got a vote. Only 5 teams knew that North Korea bordered on three countries--‐ Russia has a small border so it was likely overlooked. All but two teams knew Nepal contained Mt. Everest and two said China; the Hacks correctly had both China and Nepal. I was very impressed that all but 4 teams knew that Quebec City was selected as the first North American heritage city. Well done. Quite a few, including Trivia Now, and Insanity Later knew Porky Pig’s girl friend Petunia; other answers were Elise, Pinky, Elvira, Ernestine, Pricilla, Mable, Dora and lastly, Porkette. All but one team knew that SOHO meant South of Houston; the lone incorrect answer said South Hoboken. Francis Sinatra would have been pleased.

Round 4 was the weakest of the night with only 7 teams scoring as high as 6. The Hotel Clan slipped badly here getting a 2 but they still came on in the last few rounds for a high finish. The majority of teams knew that Indonesia was the 4th most populous country but only 8 knew (or guessed?) that the mini--‐micro city was in Hamburg--‐--‐--‐a great many said Dresden--‐ some notion of the rebuilding from WW2? The Hamburger group was Trivia Now, Green Eggs, Italian Rasta, Hacks, the sobered Ministry, Otto Maass, the Spuds and again, the Blonde Artifacts. I will take a small credit for confusing 68% of the House with the origins of the word “Blimp”. I have a source for the origins but not the alternatives. Only 5 teams scored that Jean Beliveau was the second--‐highest point--‐maker on the Habs (Cashew, Space Cadets, Spuds, Rabblerousers and For the Record). The Ministry and a great many others thought it was Guy Lafleur. NO team knew it was the mighty rhinoceros that deals deadly with people in India. There were a variety of answers including wolves, humans and cows. George Harrison was recognized as the singer of the piece featured in “Goodfellas” while one group posed Paul Sorvino? I did not know he could sing.

Round 5 was the best of the night with 2/3rds of the questions being answered correctly. Superman fans abound, as only one team did not know his hometown. Ten teams including Green Eggs (who scored a top 8 along with 7 other teams) knew that the Hawaiian alphabet had only 12 letters. Many selected Paul Anka for his super hit song “Diana” including Black Hole, For the Record and Italian Rasta. Only three teams knew that the Adirondack Park is the biggest one and these were Thistle Rocks, Space Cadets and the Spuds. Taylor Swift was correct and answered by all! It should be noted that the Blonde Artifacts were by far the most consistent team in the evening scoring 7 +/--‐ 1 in every round for their overall 3rd place finish.

In Round 6, the eventual winner and steady Thistle Rocks made the high score of 8 along with the nearly equally steady Blonde Artifacts with an overall score of 62% for the House. I was somewhat shocked that all teams save two knew that Mike Weir was a winner of one of the big four golf tournaments. Excellent. Only Black Hole, Green Eggs and the Spuds got that the group “America” was from England. Most teams knew that Passchendaele was in Belgium. The percentage of weight of the bones in the body was spread for the most part between 8 and 18 with 18 being the right answer. Quite a few teams were successful with Hong Kong being the giant of the giant buildings and a great many scored on Klezmer music.

The final round was scored at about average (59%) and many were knowledgeable as to who fought in the Crimean War. Impressive. Equally well done was identifying the official language of Papua New Guinea as English. The House basically knew what a pangram is and I diverted only a few with the odd alternatives. I knew and was given advice from Kim Stephenson that “THERIN” would be “trouble” and it was --‐ even to the point of the consecutive letter “issue” raised correctly by the Blonds. In the end, teams had to have at least 9 words and a few came up short but most were given credit here for a debatable word like “er”. Nine teams selected Sylvester Stallone for the most nominations for the “Golden Raspberry” award but a similar number liked (disliked) Adam Sandler. Best guess for me. All but one team knew “The Perfect Storm” and many got it that 2015 was the “Back to the Future 2” year. The last question in the round was the piece by “Air Supply”. About half got the answer but the alternatives would have filled stadiums--‐ America, Hall and Oates, The Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, Don Henley, Christopher Cross, 10cc (mybad)? Jefferson Starship, Seals and Crofts and even Kris Kristofferson.

Thank you all for coming and thanks to the team of Adam, Pinkal, Jessie and Alexander for keeping excellent books as well as Kim Stephenson from our Bookstore for keeping track of the finances and contributing edits and questions.